


Triumph of the Fallen

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU - Canon Divergence, F/M, More characters as they appear, Sack of demons Uncle Ardyn, romance occurs as Luna and Noct grow up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-02-06 07:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12812229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Luna ran down the narrow path to the train station, holding a large, wide-brimmed hat over her head with one hand and gripping the hilt of her father's sword with the other. Every few steps, the tip of the scabbard banged on the cobbles, and Luna felt the sound of it hum through her bones.I'm here,it seemed to say, with every bang and clack and scrape.I'm here, I'm here.----At twelve years old, Lunafreya decides enough is enough, and runs off to change fate on her own.





	1. Chapter 1

The night Lunafreya Nox Fleuret disappeared, the queen of Tenebrae woke to find the windows of her bedroom laced with frost. Feathery patterns of ice spiraled on the glass, crackled along the frame, and made curtains stiffen and twist in an unnatural chill. The dark blue carpet was dotted with snow, and glass shards on the dresser were all that remained of her lamp, which she'd forgotten to turn off that evening. Queen Sylva pulled her fur stole down from the headboard and wrapped it around her shoulders, and turned to face the figure at the door.

"Gentiana," she said. Her daughter's divine patron raised a pale, unsmiling face to the queen. "Is Luna well? Has something happened?"

Gentiana did not open her mouth to speak, but her words rang through Sylva's mind all the same, light and impassive.

 _Yes,_ she said. _Something has._

 

\---

 

Luna ran down the narrow path to the train station, holding a large, wide-brimmed hat over her head with one hand and gripping the hilt of her father's sword with the other. Every few steps, the tip of the scabbard banged on the cobbles, and Luna felt the sound of it hum through her bones. _I'm here,_ it seemed to say, with every bang and clack and scrape. _I'm here, I'm here._

But no one came for her. Even if Gentiana had told someone--which Luna wasn't sure of--they would be looking for Lunafreya, the twelve-year-old princess of Tenebrae, in her lovely white nightgown and soft cloth shoes. They wouldn't look for a kid in Ravus' old trousers, a black shirt stolen from the laundry, and choppy, ragged hair. The boots might have given her away, with their gold trim and fine leather, but the sylleblossoms by the path hid them well enough, and besides, it was probably too dark to tell.

Luna wondered if she should have felt bad about cutting her hair. Her mother used to praise it, going on about how beautiful and soft it was, but when it fell curling at her feet in useless gold hanks, she didn't feel anything more than a strange weightlessness. Anyways, the girl who'd looked back at her in the mirror was still Luna, maybe a little less frightened, a little less smiling. Colder, like Ravus.

Hopefully braver, too.

The train was almost ready to depart when Luna skidded to a halt at the station, panting for breath. The station master smiled down at her, his expression bland and unknowing, and flipped open his ticket book. Good. Maybe her disguise was passable after all.

"I'm under thirteen," Luna said, holding out the gil for a junior ticket. "I need to get to Lucis."

"That's nice, miss," the station master said, "but our next train to Lucis won't be for another two hours."

Two hours? Luna didn't _have_ two hours. She looked back at the manor, and saw lights winking on in the royal apartments. "Oh. Where is this one going, then?"

"Accordo," the station master said. He frowned. "Here, now. You aren't in any kind of trouble, are you, miss?"

"Oh, no," Luna said, backing up a step. Her sword skidded on the concrete, and the station master's frown deepened. "I'm just." She glanced at the near-empty station. There were two women sitting in front of a food cart, a member of the Crownsguard chatting with a few servants from the manor, and a man leaning against one of the train doors, a hat tilted down over his eyes. "I'm with my uncle," she said, nodding to the man. "He wants me to learn how to buy a ticket by myself, you see, so I thought--"

"Does he?" The station master closed his book. "Let's bring you back to him, then."

"I'm quite fine on my own, thank you," Luna insisted, but the station master grabbed her hand and towed her forward. They had to pass the servants and soldier on their way, and Luna tilted her own hat a little, turning her face aside.

"Good evening, sir," the station master said, when they reached the man in the hat. "It seems your niece has gone missing."

The man in the hat glanced up, and for the second time that night, terror made Luna's skin go cold. The man smiled, amber eyes warm, dark red hair brushing his cheeks, and inclined his head towards Luna in a mocking bow.

"Of course," he said, after a long, terrible silence. "My niece. What were you doing bothering the good station master, my dear?"

Luna's mouth dropped open. "I... I was..."

The station master sighed. "Do remember to keep an eye on her, sir," he said. "We can't have children underfoot, not with the king of Lucis and his retinue in town."

The man nodded again, and the station master walked off, sauntering towards the food truck. Then the man adjusted his hat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and regarded Luna with the excitable air of a child seeing through a magician's trick.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, your highness," he said. "What brings a daughter of the Oracle out of bed at this hour?"

Luna fell back a step. She knew this man. She'd seen his face before, not just in the missives sent from Niflheim to her mother, but in visions supplied by Gentiana, her advisor and patron. Luna had grown up with his face on her heart, an omen of death, of the inevitable workings of fate. Even if she hadn't seen it, she could feel it, the pull of the Scourge in his veins, stirring the magic that flowed in her own. She lifted her chin and clenched her hands to keep from trembling.

"What brings the Accursed to Tenebrae?" Luna asked.

Ardyn smiled. "Business," he said. "But I'm _much_ more interested in why a princess would need to claim _me_ as her uncle."

He turned at the sound of bells, and Luna whirled on her foot. The alarms of the manor were ringing all at once, a dreadful chorus that sang out over the sylleblossom fields and the hushed silence of the station platform. The servants reacted first, rising to their feet and staggering towards the manor. The Crownsguard soldier followed at their heels, confusion stark on their face, and Luna shrank closer to Ardyn.

"I must go," she said. She looked to Ardyn, who still stood before the train door. "Let me through."

Ardyn raised an eyebrow. "Now, now," he said. "That wouldn't be very civic-minded of me, letting a princess disappear."

"Let me through," Luna said again, gritting her teeth, "or I'll..." What? she wondered. Stab Ardyn with a sword she couldn't use? Kick him? Scream? A cold breeze blew at Luna's exposed neck, and she grabbed Ardyn's jacket, trying to wrest him aside by force. It was like trying to move a brick wall. "Or I'll tell everyone what you are."

"Everyone?" Ardyn asked. "Everyone who?" Luna glanced around the station. Even the station master was gone, hovering at the gate to watch the chaos unfold at the manor. Ardyn crossed his arms, planting his feet solidly before the door, and watched Luna expectantly.

Luna groaned, grabbed his arms with both hands, braced her boot on his thigh, and climbed halfway to his shoulders before Ardyn could react. She'd done it with her father when he was alive, holding his hands with both of hers and scrambling to his shoulders, but Luna then was six years old and scrawny. Now, she was still a little small for her age, but her boots were sharp, and she had a lot more elbow and knee to jab into the fleshy parts of Ardyn's chest and neck. Ardyn squawked and grabbed her by the middle, and Luna curled a fist in his soft hair.

"You will let me on this train," Luna said, flailing in Ardyn's grip, "or you will spend the rest of your immortal life wearing a _wig_."

Ardyn sighed deeply, turned around, and gingerly set Luna down in the doorway of the train car. Luna let go of his hair and primly adjusted her shirt.

"Thank you," she said.

"Oh, my pleasure, naturally," Ardyn said. Luna pivoted, ignoring the soft laughter at her back, and marched to the door of the sleeper car. The train rocked a little, and she felt the pull of Ardyn's magic behind her. "And what, pray tell, will you do without a ticket?"

Luna winced.

Ardyn came to a stop beside her, and the long ribbons at his sleeves brushed her shoulders. "I believe," Ardyn said, swiping his thumb lazily over the buttons on his phone, "that my business in Tenebrae will have to be put on hold for a time. After all, we can't have a young lady travel all the way to Accordo unattended."

Luna swung open a door to an empty room and flounced inside, banging her sword against Ardyn's shins. "So long as it keeps your _business_ away from my home and Noctis, I don't care what you do."

"That can't be true," Ardyn said. He watched as Luna sat stiffly on one of the bunks, and leaned against the door frame. "It's your job to care, young one. Predestined in the stars and all that."

"Well, the stars are wrong," Luna said. She blushed, heat rising to her cheeks, and drew her knees up to her chest. It almost hurt to say it. Eight years of believing so fiercely that everything the gods did was right, that they had a purpose, a reason, and it had all fallen apart so easily. Was she really so fickle? Did it only take a smile, a laugh, tentative hands weaving a sylleblossom crown, for her will to break? Luna wrapped her arms around her knees, and saw that Ardyn was staring at her in open astonishment. "What?"

"A future oracle, questioning the will of the gods?" Ardyn sat down on the bunk opposite, and Luna tugged her hat over her eyes. "Goodness, what must have happened to shake even _your_ indomitable trust?"

Luna looked to the window. Frost was trying to form on the glass, but it kept being chased away by the heat of the train, which lurched and rattled as it ground its way along the tracks. The dark, jagged mountains of Tenebrae began to fall away, and as Luna was jostled by the unsteady rocking of the sleeper car, the first fat feather-puffs of snow began to fall on the station platform.


	2. Chapter 2

The last time Lunafreya spoke to her father, she was seven years old.

Duke Polonius of Tenebrae, the consort to Queen Sylva and commander of the Tenebraean army, was a white-haired man with Luna's stubborn chin and a face that could only be called homely, if one's idea of a home was a burned-out shack with the windows blown out. His nose was twice broken, his right eye made of glass, and the scars of a daemon attack ravaged what Luna's mother said was once a very charming jawline. Luna wasn't sure what made a jawline charming, but since her mother and father didn't marry for love, she supposed her mother had to take what charm she could find.

"So."

Luna folded her hands in her lap. Duke Pol's rapier hung over his desk, a prize from the king of Lucis when he was young and his betrothal to Queen Sylva was nothing but a faraway dream. Luna stared at the blade as her father fiddled with a paperweight, calloused fingers scraping over the smooth wood.

"I always thought it was a shame," he said at last, "that you were made an Oracle."

Luna blinked. No one had ever spoken of her calling as anything but good and true, the glorious ending to a play that began some two thousand years before. Gentiana herself, when she first came to Luna, said that Luna's devotion to her duty had thawed even the heart of Shiva.

The duke fumbled with his paperweight and sat down, his one good eye focused on Luna. "I've never been good with children," he said. "But when you were born, I thought. Well. I always wanted to raise someone to follow after my line. Be a fighter, a philosopher."

"Ravus is taking sword lessons," Luna said. Her father smiled, a quirk of the lips that barely twitched above a scowl.

"Ravus is soft, Lunafreya," he said. "Let him keep that softness. It is a rare thing, these days. But you? You and I are much alike."

Luna wondered if she could get away with a protest. If it were possible to be a devout atheist in a manor where gods wandered the halls, her father had somehow managed it. He believed the Scourge could be cured by science, that the Astrals were nothing but powerful creatures with delusions of godhood, that tenants of the Cosmogony, like prophecies and destiny, were never absolute. He was everything Luna had to force herself not to be, and a force of contention in the royal family since before she could remember. Even at seven, Luna knew that her parents could not be in a room together for more than an hour without having what Ravus called one of their "philosophical discussions." The last time, her mother had thrown a plate against the wall so hard that the light sconces rattled. 

"You show flashes of being a practical child," her father said, while Luna stared at him, pressing her lips in a thin line. "I can only hope you hold onto that in the years to come."

He glanced up, and his ruined face twisted in a look Luna found far too familiar. She turned, and saw Gentiana at the door, her eyes open, gaze fixed on the duke. "Gen!" Luna cried. "You should have said something!"

Gentiana only smiled, and Luna ran to her, taking both of Gentiana's bloodless hands in hers.

Her father died a week later, trapped in the trenches in Southern Niflheim. One of Gralea's nastier ice storms had settled in, hovering over the troops of Tenebrae while the Empire's MTs ground away in their treated armor. The messenger who came to Queen Sylva said that the duke had passed in his sleep, his body shutting down in the bitter cold of the storm.

Five years later, sitting on a train bunk with the enemy of Eos calmly flipping through a paperback book a few feet away, Luna ran a thumb over her father's sword.

"Ah." She looked up to find Ardyn skipping to the back of the book. He sighed. "A tragedy. I thought as much." He tossed the book in the air, and it disappeared in a flash of red light. "The trouble with immortality, my dear, is that it ruins you for a good mystery. As they say, if you've read seven hundred or so, you've read them all."

"How terrible for you," Luna said.

"Yes, your heart bleeds." Ardyn crossed his legs and began unwinding his scarf. "Now. The mountains of Tenebrae are behind you, as well as the young prince. Is he the one you are running from, little Oracle?"

"I'm not running," Luna said, and clamped her mouth shut at Ardyn's slow smile. She looked down at her hands, clenched on the hilt of her father's sword. It was useless, really, more ornamental than anything. Nothing like her mother's trident, or the array of weapons she saw King Regis summon the other day, when he and his Crownsguard sparred in the gardens.

"Then what are you running to?" Ardyn asked. "Was the chosen king not everything you dreamed of? I saw the old portraits, you know. They had to paint over my face--rather awkward, all told, to have to replace one king of light with another--but oh, how noble he looked! So brave, and tall, and not at all writhing in terror at the end of his ancestors' blades."

"Stop." Luna dug her nails in the metal, but Ardyn's voice slipped into her mind like an echo of her own thoughts.

"I admit, he didn't seem like much when I first saw him, either. Thousands of years of waiting for the chosen hero to come, and he's a scrawny little--"

"He's nice," Luna said. Ardyn stopped short. "The first time we met, he asked me to call him Noct, and told me all about his friends at the Citadel. He called me Luna, and only Ravus calls me that, and not often." She forced down a hard lump in her throat. "It was easier when he wasn't real, when he was some magical king in Insomnia. But he gave Umbra treats even though Umbra doesn't have to eat, and he wanted to make flower crowns, and I... I'm not letting the gods kill him."

She could hear the smile in Ardyn's voice. "Oh? And what will you do instead?"

Luna felt the small, tight knot that had lodged in her chest since the first time Noctis smiled at her, and her glorious future went crumbling through her fingers. Here, she realized, was the stubbornness she shared with her father, the will of flint that allowed her to push past the fear of her training as an oracle, the weight of her mother's disapproval as she made plans to flee, the sudden inflectionless tone of Gentiana's voice. She would not stand by and let the world break what she held dear. 

She thought of Gentiana's eyes gazing down at her from the balcony as she ran, ice cracking at her heels along the narrow path to the gardens.

"I'll do what I must," Luna said. "And no one; not you, not even the gods, will stop me."

Ardyn clapped his hands. "As far as empty threats go," he said, "I'd give that one a solid seven out of ten. Well, you're young. You'll learn, if the gods don't kill you first."

"They wouldn't dare," Luna said. "I'm their chosen Oracle. They need me."

"Naturally," Ardyn said. "It isn't as though their chosen ones can be conveniently replaced once they've served their purpose."

"Don't twist things," Luna said. "It's all your fault anyways. If you hadn't failed--"

"Oh, _bless_ you, I wondered when that would come up," Ardyn said. "I also created rain on the weekends, did you know? And the common cold, that was me as well. And traffic. And that feeling when you haven't brushed your teeth all day and the roof of your mouth--"

"I don't have to listen to you," Luna snapped. 

"Touchy, aren't we?"

They both turned at the creak of the door sliding open, revealing a train employee in a bright blue uniform. The man held a ticket grinder in one hand, his cap in the other, and looked to both of them with the dead-eyed expression of true, mind-numbing boredom.

"Welcome-to-the-Tenebrae-Express-may-I-ask-where-you'll-be-departing-today," he said, in a toneless drone.

Ardyn rose to his feet. "My niece and I are heading for--"

"Altissia," Luna said. The Leviathan was in Altissia. Ardyn glanced at Luna and raised a shoulder in a careless shrug.

"As the lady orders. She is, after all, in charge."

"Thank-you-have-a-nice-day-the-drink-cart-is-broken-sorry-for-the-inconvenience," the man said, tearing Ardyn's tickets to shreds. He turned and walked off, muttering under his breath.

"You plan to follow me, then?" Luna asked. 

"Think of me as a concerned chaperone," Ardyn said. Luna rolled her eyes, which would have probably made Noctis laugh. "Besides, I imagine this endeavor will be far too amusing to miss."

\---

_Dear Noctis._

Luna's mother had told her stories about Altissia. She'd visited with King Regis over twenty years before, running down the crowded streets as festival lights rose on the warm summer breeze. She'd never mentioned the smell of spices, though, or gutted fish, or the moss that crept up the bridges and sprouted little white flowers in the cobbles. She hadn't mentioned the way all the buildings seemed to slope inwards, making Luna feel like a doll in an elaborate play-house, trapped in a dream world with the living vessel of the Scourge whistling at her side.

_I'm so sorry I had to leave you. The past three days have been the happiest of my life._

"Are you hungry?" Ardyn asked, as they passed a row of food trucks selling spiced shrimp and lemon-glazed snapper. "Mortals are, after a few hours."

"I didn't bring enough money for food," Luna said, and Ardyn raised his hands in supplication to the empty sky. He walked up to a food cart and ordered a handful of shrimp funneled into a screwed-up piece of wax paper, which he handed to Luna with a bow.

"For my favorite niece," he said, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Luna smiled back, matching him lie for lie.

"Thank you, Uncle."

_I assure you that I am quite safe._

"Does the sun hurt you overmuch?" Luna asked, discreetly searching for something she could wipe her fingers on. Ardyn held her elbow as a group of women ran by, laughing loud enough to make Luna's ears ring.

"Thank you for your concern," Ardyn said, "but one grows used to it after a few centuries."

Luna stood on her toes and tilted Ardyn's hat up a fraction, and he slapped her hand away. His eyes were dark, blackness pooling around the edges like ink staining a scroll.

"Not so used to it, then," Luna whispered. Ardyn scowled, summoning a handkerchief from the ether and shoving it in Luna's hands.

"If you are to touch my hat," he said, "at least take care not to cover it with grease. It's hand-made."

Luna sighed. "And here I almost pitied you."

Ardyn readjusted his hat and made an exaggerated shudder. "Gods forbid."

_I must ask you to be brave, Noctis, for what I have to tell you about our fate will be hard to hear. Yet it must be said for you to understand why I have left home._

Altissia would have been almost nice, if Luna had been alone. She and Ardyn rented a gondola, which Luna attempted to steer until her shirt was soaked through with sweat and Ardyn was too bored to find her struggle worth the slow pace. He took over, and Luna lay on the bow and ran her fingers through the water, watching sunlight catch on the ripples her hands made.

Noctis would have loved it. He'd probably like to fish--he'd spoken at length about the rod his father bought him last year. It seemed like an idyllic life in Insomnia. Noctis was allowed to be a boy, with friends and afternoons in the sunshine and rescued kittens smuggled into his rooms. Maybe she'd visit, when it was all over. She could meet his friends, dip her feet in the canal where he liked to fish, and figure out what it was that Lunafreya liked to do when she wasn't barreling head-first into her duties as the next Oracle. She was already compiling a list in her head: Spiced shrimp. The waters of Altissia. Not having to steer a gondola while birds wheeled about in a clear sky. She hummed as the gondola clunked against a floating dock by a string of boats, and swirled her finger in the reflection of a seagull against the sun.

"If you want to wake the Leviathan," Ardyn said, "you may wish to do so now, before the streets become too crowded. Not that it will matter," he added. "Once you die, it is likely that the line of the Oracles will fail with your mother in a few decades, and the darkness will take them all in the end. It's simply a matter of _how,_ I suppose."

"That's awfully defeatist," Luna said. She climbed onto the dock, holding her sword tight. "Father said that the worst type of person is one who does nothing while bad things happen to other people."

"And how well did that philosophy serve the late duke, I wonder?" Ardyn asked. Luna didn't bother glaring at him this time. She stared down into the dark waters where the Leviathan slept, trying to piece out a shape in the depths. Gentiana hadn't gotten to the covenants in their studies, yet, and Luna wasn't sure if she had the power to make one.

"Hello?" she called. Ardyn covered his face with a hand.

"Magnificent attempt, your highness."

"Oh, do shut up," Luna said. She dropped to her knees, and tried to call on the magic in her blood, which she'd only just started to use to help her mother heal victims of the Scourge. "Hello? Leviathan? This is Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, the last Oracle of Tenebrae. It's time for you to... to wake up. Please."

Luna waited, clinging to the dock with both hands. Above her, a gull cried out. Bells rang from the arena in the distance, and the boats around her rocked in their moorings. Ardyn lay back in the gondola and summoned his book.

"Oh, look at that," Ardyn said, after another minute. "The maid did it. In the drawing room, with an ax."

_But I promise you this, Noctis._

Luna kicked off her shoes. Ardyn glanced up at that, brow raised as she gently lay her father's sword down on the dock. "My dear," he said, as Luna dropped her hat next to her shoes. "What exactly are you planning to--"

His voice disappeared in a crash as Luna dove off the edge of the dock, eyes stinging in the saltwater of the bay. The darkness yawned beneath her, and she summoned more of her healing light, making the bubbles that frothed around her glow and glitter.

_I will do all I can to ensure that the prophecy does not come to pass._

"Leviathan!" she shouted, releasing another cloud of bubbles. She struggled to stay under, fighting the urge to rise to the surface, and stared into the murky chasm beneath her kicking feet.

Then, just as she nearly gave up and shot back to the warm air of Altissia, Luna saw it. A small, faint pinprick of yellow far below, flickering on and off like a firefly in the gardens back home. An eye, gazing up at her, blinking away centuries of sleep.

The eye shut, and there was a roar as the shadows lengthened, twisting into a massive shape that coiled around Luna even as she paddled furiously towards the surface.

After nearly two thousand years, the Leviathan was awake, and answering the call of the last Oracle.


	3. Chapter 3

The Leviathan came to Luna with the force of a high wind in the mountains, one that could bend pines and cast unsuspecting hikers off the trail. Luna had steeled herself against such winds before, but she didn't have firm ground to fall back on this time, no Ravus to take her hand. She surfaced in a circle of water that churned with whitecaps, and looked up at a wall of scales that swirled around her in an endless loop. Every now and then, a fin eclipsed the sun, and Luna got the impression of a row of windows folding and fanning out like the wings of a moth.

"Mortal child," the Leviathan said. Her voice was that of a hawk descending, and Luna wondered at how Gentiana, poring over scrolls in the library, could ever call her _beautiful._ "You are not one of mine. You are a creature of wind and tree, of cold, dead stones and borrowed magic. What brings you here, where mortals live fast and hot and unchanging?"

Luna opened her mouth to speak, and inhaled a lungful of salt water. She coughed, thrashing in the waves, and the Leviathan tilted her massive head.

"You bear the magic of the Founder King," the Leviathan said. "Why? Has he spawned at last?"

"Spawned?" Luna asked, her voice no more than a wheeze. "You mean--no. No, gods no, we aren't related. Bahamut split the powers of the gods between the line of the oracle and the kings of Lucis. Surely you know this?"

"I care little for what Bahamut does." The Leviathan coiled tighter, and Luna felt the pull of a current dragging her towards the center of the circle. "Why would an oracle's get come to me?"

"I thought..." Of all the places for the realization of one's mistakes to happen, the middle of a growing whirlpool, surrounded by a goddess who could crush her in seconds, was not ideal. Still, there was nothing Luna could do but press on. "I have a request. On behalf of Noctis."

"What," the Leviathan said, "in the seven hells is a _Noctis?_ "

"The King of Light," Luna said. "The. Can you stop moving, please?"

The Leviathan's coils drew tighter still. Luna strained to look behind her, but she couldn't make out the dock where Ardyn was waiting with the boat.

"There's a flaw in the prophecy," Luna said. "If Noctis is to inherit a power greater than the gods, and the gods have power over the astral plane, then why does he have to die?"

"I did say," the Leviathan reminded her, "that I don't care much for Bahamut's little games. So the rules are rigged? What does it matter? You are short-lived creatures, weak and wrinkled and soft. What should it matter if one, if two, if a thousand of you are battered against the shores of this war if it brings peace between Bahamut and Ifrit?"

Luna felt her chest draw tight. Even Gentiana at her coldest, when she spoke of humanity with a sharpness that only Luna could temper, was never as blunt as this. "That's horrible," she said, in a voice that was lost in the clap of the waves. "The gods are meant to _aid_ humanity!"

The Leviathan opened her sharp-toothed maw to screech into the clear sky, but any fear Luna should have felt was pushed aside by a growing rage. It was the same fury that drove her brother to throw books across the room and threaten to end his sword lessons entirely, the quiet anger that her father held in his tense jaw when the gods were mentioned, the brightness of her mother's eyes when she spoke of the Accursed. It coursed through Luna, stronger than any current the Leviathan could stir, and while her own shout was drowned in the shriek of the goddess, she felt better for it.

"It's your duty!" she cried. "All of you, it was your duty to protect us! And you gave us the Starscourge! You gave us the Accursed! And now you make _us_ do the sacrificing for you!"

A wave crashed over her, pushing Luna under the surface. For a moment, all she saw was darkness, with tendrils of light streaking in like the sun through smoke, and then the Leviathan's face appeared, bursting through the shadows in a ruinous mask of rage.

"You dare," she cried, and Luna held on as the goddess lifted her from the water with her snout. Luna's bare feet dangled dangerously close to the Leviathan's teeth. "I warned Bahamut that this experiment of his would do us no favors, that his squabble with Ifrit would only give our servants airs they haven't earned."

"We aren't servants of the gods," Luna shouted back. "It's the gods who serve the chosen king."

"Why should we?" the Leviathan asked. "What has this king done that deserves our service?"

Luna's fingers slipped on slick scales. _He's nice,_ she thought. _He likes dogs. He laughed when we raced Ravus down the halls the other day, and took the blame when we lost control and broke two vases._

"He's the first friend I've ever had," Luna said at last, in a small, weak voice.

"This is a waste of time," the Leviathan said. Luna slipped another inch, and looked down to find the sea yawning beneath her, rolling in the wake of the Leviathan. "Bahamut has failed. Wake me again, little blasphemer, when you have an answer I can stomach."

Luna tried to protest, tried to shout, but her hands finally lost their grip as the Leviathan dove into the water once more, flinging her past the dock where Ardyn sat with his book. She got one look at him, his brows raised, hat tilted at a jaunty angle, before the water folded over her and the world went black.

 

\---

 

"I can't believe this!"

Luna set down a piece of the grilled eel she'd been waving about over her bowl, and furiously picked out a lump of rice. She held it halfway to her mouth, then let it drop back into the bowl. Around her, the customers of the Maahgo bar of Altissia watched her out of the corner of their eyes, staring at the puddle of water that spilled over the boards beneath her feet.

"She said it was a _game!_ " she cried. "As though the lives of millions lost to the Scourge don't even matter!"

"You don't say." Ardyn had his chin propped up on both hands, his own eel bowl entirely untouched, smiling at Luna as though she were a particularly talented parrot who had learned how to curse in polite company.

Luna rolled up her sleeves. She had quite a lot of them, now.

Ardyn hadn't so much dragged her out of the water as he'd steered the gondola close enough for Luna to flop inside like a gasping fish, all shivering limbs and impotent fury. The use of her magic left her ravenous as always, and so Luna had made no argument when Ardyn suggested they stop so he could admire her eventual breakdown with a glass of wine.

Not, of course, that Luna planned on breaking.

She'd stomped barefoot into the Maahgo bar and grill, saltwater dripping from her hair onto Ardyn's jacket, which the Accursed had bemusedly handed to her after docking their somewhat battered boat. The sleeves were wide enough to get lost in, and the hem trailed the floor, but Luna ignored the stares of her fellow diners and had plumped herself down in a seat at the bar.

She speared a piece of eel, and a man a few seats down scooted away. Ardyn smiled.

"A game?" she said again. "How could this be a _game_ to her? To Bahamut! Surely he wouldn't think of humanity as, as chess pieces in a _fight._ "

"More like mice in a minefield," Ardyn said. He blinked at Luna's glare. "Do go on."

Luna felt a sharp retort bubble to her lips, and bit it down. _You're acting like Ravus,_ she thought, in an inner voice that sounded too close to her mother's for comfort. _Act like an oracle._

Except... The old threat didn't quite work anymore. Luna was hardly behaving like an oracle, not since she ran from Tenebrae. A proper oracle in training would have quietly spoken to Gentiana or her mother, and let them reassure her that Noctis' death--and her own--was ordained by the gods. The Luna from a week ago would have done it. She would have curled up with a copy of the Cosmogony and dreamed of a glorious future, of dawn unending, and let the memory of an awkward, cheerful kid with messy hair and a soft smile disappear like a distant dream.

She looked down at the eel in her bowl, then to her own hands, satin soft with years of reading through old scrolls and books with treated gloves. They were hands belonging to a girl who had learned the virtue of stillness, of silence, of holding everything back until she could almost hear the smallest, shameful part of herself screaming and wailing and kicking far beneath. 

Maybe it was time to stop trying to be a good oracle. Maybe it was time to listen.

Slowly, she reached back to curl those soft fingers around the hilt of her father's sword.

"It's a game to you, too," she said to Ardyn, who nodded and raised his wine glass in a silent toast. "But it wasn't always one. You used to care what happened to the world."

"I used to do many things," Ardyn said. "Not all of them advisable."

Luna pushed her eel aside and swiveled on her stool to face Ardyn. The silk roses on Ardyn's jacket sleeves trailed over her arms when she moved, and when she leaned forward, Ardyn shifted almost imperceptibly back.

"I still care," Luna said. "But the difference between us, Ardyn Lucis Caelum..." she said the words slowly, savoring the shape of them, "is when the gods want to take something from me? I'm not going to do nothing and lose everything."

Ardyn's eyes darkened. Shadows pooled under his eyes and at the corner of his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice had a strange echo to it, as though he were speaking through a faulty radio. "You have no notion of what I have done, princess."

"I don't," Luna said. She leaned over and picked up the wine bottle, much to the dismay of the bartender, and topped off Ardyn's glass. "So why don't you tell me? After all, you're immortal, aren't you? You have all the time in the world."

"While your time is borrowed," Ardyn said.

"Stolen," Luna said. "If the gods are playing games with us, then I refuse to play along. So go on, Uncle." She gave him her best royal smile, all dimples and crinkled eyes. "Tell me a story."


	4. Chapter 4

Long ago, in a country that did not deserve him, there lived a man deemed too perfect even for the gods.

His hair was the color of the richest of wines. His jaw was chiseled and yet delicate at the same time, and his eyes glittered with a gold that sent all who saw them into swoons of desire and despair. Why, he couldn’t walk down the street without someone flinging themselves to their knees and begging for just a moment of his time, a lock of his hair, a touch of his hand.

“Oh, Ardyn,” they cried, sobbing hysterically as he passed. “If only you could spare us a fraction of your infinite beauty and grace! We are but worms, worms! Writhing in the muck while your divine self floats upon the loftiest of—“

-

“Excuse me.”

Lunafreya waved a hand at the bartender, who turned with an anxious smile. She leaned forward over the counter and pointed to a small map over the mirror. 

“You don’t know where I can get a good ten-gil romance novel, do you, sir?” she asked. “I’m in need of some high literature.”

Ardyn tipped his hat forward over his brow, struggling to smooth out a smile. “You said you wanted a story, my dear.”

“Yes,” Luna said, as the bartender looked between the two of them with obvious confusion. “But I _do_ have standards.”

Ardyn sighed. “Your line has no notion of a proper dramatic narrative. Very well.” He clapped his hands. “Attend to me, dear niece.”

-

Long ago, in a country that wasn’t so much a nation as it was a loose collection of villages held together by the memory of something better, there lived a young boy who wanted to be a healer.

He had the talent for it. At five years old, while other children were teaching their clumsy fingers to tie laces or dig through the great pits of what remained of Solheim for scraps to sell, Ardyn Lucis Caelum was balancing salves and divvying up his mother’s potions into small glass vials. He knew how to tell the weight of an elixir by feel, knew the sound of an unsteady heart, and could recognize the green, patchy bruises that heralded the plague. While his older brother ran about the streets of their village, making a big name for himself, Ardyn spent his mornings sitting on his mother’s desk while she saw to neighbors with broken bones, with coughs that wouldn’t go away, with liver diseases and strange poxes and common colds. She kept her dark hair tied up in a bun that always fell loose by the end of the day, and Ardyn was already growing his own hair out to match, yearning to follow her in all things.

Then, before he was old enough to read the complicated notes his mother wrote in her medical journals, the gods came to him.

They told him he had a glorious destiny. They told him that only he could cure the world of the greatest sickness in the history of their star. They told him that it would be a small sacrifice to make, so small, for the sake of the world as it was. And when he was done, they promised, he would be made king. King of a new Solheim. King of Lucis. 

-

“You were five?” Luna asked.

“Or four,” Ardyn said. “It’s been so long—You’ll forgive me if I miss a year, won’t you?”

“I was four when Gentiana came to me,” Luna said. 

Ardyn said nothing, only watched Luna as she unfolded the collar of his jacket and hid behind it, clutching a cup of water to her lips like a shield.

-

On the day Ardyn left to fulfill his destiny, his brother didn’t appear to see him off. His mother came, nervously clutching Shiva’s hand as the goddess assured her that Ardyn would be looked after in all things, and Ardyn’s best friend Gil showed up with a borrowed sword and a promise to protect him from the daemons that wandered the wastes, but it wasn’t the sort of hero’s send-off Ardyn expected. It was small, and scattered, and more than a little sad. He found himself crying a little as he left, and Gil pushed their shoulders together and held his hand tight. 

“You’ll be okay, Ardyn,” he said. “You’re the bravest kid I know.”

Ardyn looked out over the ravaged fields that used to be the greatest kingdom of their star, and up to the sinking sun. “I sure hope so, Gil,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go cure the Scourge.”

-

Luna set down her empty glass. Ardyn adjusted his hat, and the bartender, who was writing up the night’s receipts, accidentally marked a long line through his calculations. He leaned down and retrieved a monocle from his cash drawer, then pulled out a thick yellow stack of blank telegrams. 

He kept his back to Luna and Ardyn as he began to write. 

-

The first time Ardyn absorbed a daemon, Gil drew his sword on the gods.

“It’s too much for him!” he shouted, his voice cracking as he gripped the hilt too tight, fingers shaking. Ardyn crouched in the earth, fingers digging into the roots of the grass, trying to see past the pain that raced through his limbs like fire. Gil was a shadow before him, a shield standing before the glowing forms of the gods and their messengers, his back straight and long dark hair flat over his shoulders. 

“Young protector,” said Bahamut, in a voice that made the ground quiver and shake. “Your love for your liege is admirable. You must respect his decision to right the wrongs that have poisoned this star.”

“It’s a _stupid_ decision, then,” Gil said. “I’m not about to—you didn’t see the way he—he looked like he was _dying,_ I ain’t about to—“

“Gil.” Ardyn forced himself to his knees. “Gil, I’m fine.”

Gil turned to him, his sword dropping from stiff fingers. Tears pricked at his eyes, and his face screwed up like it used to when they were simply boys, not children trying to take on the burdens of the dead. The light of the gods, too piercing for a mortal form to take, had started to dye the tips of his hair silver, and made a mapwork of burns above his eyes. “You don’t _look_ fine.”

Ardyn pulled Gil to his knees, and the two boys held each other, there on the ground where Ardyn had begun his divine duty as the chosen king, and Gil’s tears burned hot on Ardyn’s shoulder.

“He will need an Oracle,” Bahamut said to Shiva. “One to foretell his coming, to make his duty just.”

“I will find one,” Shiva said, and Ardyn closed his eyes to the light of her passing.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Gil. “I’m so sorry. I’ll do better next time. I promise.”

-

“But the Oracle came _before_ the king,” Luna said. “She was the first Nox Fleuret, a noble—“

“Tenebrae did not exist,” Ardyn said, in a cold, flat tone. Luna pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders. “Your ancestors lived in trees, in little wooden houses—you’ve heard the stories of elves, have you not? That’s where they came from. Your great great, oh, who knows how many greats… grandmother was a peasant, a girl plucked from a tree like an apple for an offering—“

“You lie,” Luna said. “She was the best of us. There are tapestries. Paintings, books.”

“You think history cannot be rewritten?” Ardyn asked. “Truly?”

Luna looked at Ardyn, at his dark red hair and not-so-chiseled jaw, and wondered if he ever had been that tearful boy in the dirt, holding his best friend close as the gods looked on. 

“I suppose it can,” she said.

-

Ardyn’s final homecoming was a glorious one. Flowers rained down from the top windows of the high houses, clumping underfoot like the crests of a wave. Gil’s white hair was crowned with blossoms, Ardyn had a new coat emblazoned with the symbol of his house—A rose, shaped after his mother’s favorite boom—and with the cheer of the day ringing in his ears, he could ignore the stinging pain of the sun on his skin and smile into it, hand upraised in a blessing.

When he sat at the high table in the great hall, he could taste nothing of what was offered to him, but he complimented the chef all the same. When his mother placed a hand on his shoulder and told him she was proud, he could not feel the warmth of her skin, but he squeezed her fingers and kissed her on the cheek. When his brother bowed to him and showed him the Crystal, the offering of the gods that would cleanse the Scourge from his blood as he’d cleansed it from the afflicted, Ardyn did not see the twitch of his lips or the tightness at his eyes.

But when he touched the Crystal itself, and felt its weak attempts at a cleansing do naught but push feebly at the Scourge that burned within his blood, Ardyn heard the voice of the gods well enough.

“He is too corrupt for the Crystal,” Shiva said, appearing beside the Oracle in a flurry of ice and snow. “He has taken on too much of the Scourge in his desire for glory.”

“Excuse me?” Ardyn’s voice came out as a bark, choked and ragged.

“So does pride make fools of men,” said Bahamut, rising before the Crystal. “So too did Solheim fall.”

“No.” Gilgamesh stepped forward, gripping Ardyn’s jacket sleeve in a tight fist. “No, you aren’t about to do this. Not to him. Not after what he’s sacrificed, what he’s lost—“

“He has twisted the gifts of the gods,” cried Ramuh, and Ardyn’s older brother straightened from his bow, eyes glittering in the light of the stone. 

“He’s only done what you ordered!” Gil shouted. “He’s only…” He doubled up, panting hard, and Ardyn bent to lift his dearest friend, his shield, his lover, to his feet. His light hair fell from its ties, and the mask he wore over the burns of his face was starting to slip down, biting into his nose. 

“There must be a mistake,” Ardyn said. “I’ve only ever been your servant. The Crystal must not be strong enough—“

“It will be.” That was the Oracle, her gaze passing from Ardyn to his brother, who stood straight and noble before the throne. “One day, it will be strong enough to cast even the Accursed from this plane. Then, the chosen king, the king of light, will emerge to cleanse our star.”

-

“And then my brother took the throne,” Ardyn said, in a dull, bored tone. “His reign lasted thirty glorious years, long may his line thrive, so on and so forth, and here we are, all ready for the prophecy to reach its foretold conclusion.”

Luna opened her mouth to argue, but all that came out was a broken-off sob. She covered her mouth with both hands and sank into the welcome cover of Ardyn’s jacket. 

“Oh, don’t cry,” Ardyn said. “I never know what to do with tears.”

“It’s just.” Luna scrubbed at her eyes. “I know it’s probably all lies, but I… what happened to Gil?”

“He’s somewhere.” Ardyn raised a glass of wine he probably couldn’t taste to his lips. “I hear his life is tied to mine. He’ll have his rest when I do. Which is why, my dear, it would be best if you scurried on home like a good little Oracle and told the king to hurry up, mm?”

Luna would have liked to answer him right away, but it took longer than she liked to get herself under control. She used up half of Ardyn’s sleeve and a good number of tissues to dry her eyes, and when she lifted her face, she could feel the cool breeze on her too-hot cheeks. 

“If it’s true,” she said, “then this means I _can’t_ go through with the prophecy. Not anymore.”

“You have a soft heart,” Ardyn said. 

“Gentiana said that, once.” Luna rolled up Ardyn’s jacket sleeves. “She said I thawed hers, back when I first agreed to all this.”

Ardyn shrugged. “What she didn’t tell you, my dear, is that a soft heart will get you killed. But if you want to fit a little rebellion in before you cave to the pressure of your station, who am I to argue? I may have one or two suggestions, though. Like a disguise that might actually fool someone. You _do_ know that the fine bartender there sent off a telegram with your description nearly an hour ago?”

Luna jumped in her seat. The bartender was off in the corner of the room, speaking in hushed tones to a young woman in a chef’s apron. “Why didn’t you say something?” she asked. 

“I was in the middle of a _story,_ ” Ardyn said, as though that excused anything. “Oh, don’t fret. If you leave Altissia now, you might get away before the ships from Tenebrae and Lucis arrive.”

Luna’s mind swung wildly, still too caught up by Ardyn’s story to think clearly. “I don’t… all the ships go to Lucis. I didn’t think they’d…”

“Thankfully,” Ardyn said, “I have a ship of my own waiting for me in the imperial base just at the edge of the harbor. If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition?”

Luna turned to him, taking in his affable smile. “You planned this,” she said.

“My sweet, you’ll come to learn that I make plans for _everything._ If you would?” He stood, extending a hand, and Luna slapped her own hand in his with a groan of frustration. “Excellent. You do me a great service with your _illustrious_ presence.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Luna said, and stomped off at Ardyn’s side, leaving a trail of saltwater in her wake.

-

Weskham Armaugh stood at the edge of his restaurant, only half listening to his lead chef as she whispered and wrung her hands under the dimming lights. The young princess was still at the bar, thank the gods, though why on earth a young woman of the line of Nox Fleuret would spend more than a minute in _that_ man’s company was anyone’s guess. Weskham had recognized her almost immediately, of course. She was a spitting image of her mother at her age, and Weskham, as a former steward of Lucis and somewhat-advisor to the governor of Altissia, liked to keep on top of current events. The disappearance of the princess had dominated the news in any case—he was surprised, frankly, that no one had connected the presence of a little blonde Tenebraean girl with the sudden emergence of the Leviathan that afternoon. It didn’t take much of a leap to figure it out. 

“Sir.” His head chef had a note of panic to her voice that made Weskham turn from the young girl at the bar. “Sir, I’m telling you. The oven just won’t _work._ ”

“It’s a wood-stove,” Weskham said. “It doesn’t take a bloody genius to work it, Clara. For the love of—“

“Sir, you’ll need to see it for yourself.”

He sighed, and prayed that her highness would stay still long enough for him to bawl out the kitchen staff for not keeping the fires lit. He followed Clara to the back, where a gaggle of his employees stood before the main ovens in a fearful huddle, staring at the doors. 

“For gods’ sakes,” he said, and pushed through them. “What on the goddess’ blue seas could bring the lot of you to a standstill?” He yanked open the door of the oven. “It’s just a bleeding…”

There was a short, heavy silence.

“You see, sir,” Clara said. “One second the fire was going. And then, just now, it, well. It did this.”

Weskham adjusted his monocle and peered into the oven. His breath steamed in a great billow of smoke, and the ice crystals that coated the stove glittered in the overhead lights. He pressed a gloved finger to the side of the stove.

Ice branched out from his hand, spreading over the outside of the stove in a freezing spiderweb. It crawled over the burners, popping electrical lines and snuffing out fires, sticking slabs of fish to oil that oozed over iron gleaming with frost. Weskham didn’t hear the slosh and clank of a gondola pushing away from the dock over the crash of his liquor bottles shattering, the pop of lights going out, and the screams of diners made thin with a chill wind that whirled through the bar, cold and deadly and merciless as a winter storm.


	5. Chapter 5

The imperial base was stationed in the far corner of Altissia like an afterthought, all shiny new steel and blocky concrete that didn’t match the houses framing it on either side. Ardyn waltzed through without so much as a backwards glance, and Luna followed at his heels, warily eyeing the heavy doors that shut with a resounding bang behind her. MTs lined the walls, their backs connected to ports that kept them charged and ready for deployment, and a number of human soldiers and maintenance workers scurried between rows of mechs and airships. None of them noticed Ardyn or Luna as they headed for a small carrier in the back of the base. 

“It’s my personal craft,” Ardyn said, unlocking the bay doors himself. “A little piece of home I can carry with me always.”

Luna stepped onto the ramp and peered into the gloom. The inside of the carrier didn’t look much like the pencil sketches she’d seen at her mother’s war councils. There was a couch on one side, a table bolted to the floor, and rugs and carpets and cushions scattered everywhere. Luna unlatched a sturdy wooden cabinet and found a row of cheap novels inside, with one copy of Luna’s favorite translation of the Cosmogony in the corner. She took it out and flipped it open: The margins were covered in notes, some scrawled so firmly that she could see where pencil nibs had broken, leaving smudges on the page. She gently set the book back where it belonged. 

“It’s… nice,” she said.

“I live for your approval, dear niece,” Ardyn said. “But I should note that you are, in fact, dripping all over my Altissian rugs.” Luna scowled, but Ardyn only flapped a hand. A bundle of cloth fell from his private armiger, draping over his arm, and he tossed the pile at Luna. She caught it, trailing a wide black shirtsleeve.

“I’m not in the habit of throwing the past away,” Ardyn said, as Luna unfolded a shirt embroidered with signs for healing and luck. There were complicated laces on the sleeves, and the matching trousers buttoned at the side rather than the front, but they looked to be about Luna’s size. “Those were my favorite. Do try not to dump them in the ocean.”

Luna spotted a smudge on one knee: A grass stain, still barely noticeable after centuries of magical storage. It brought her to mind of the boy in Ardyn’s story, and her hands clenched on the fabric. “Is there a place I can—“

“Bathroom,” Ardyn said, pointing to a door. He sat down at the pilot seat, humming tunelessly, and Luna disappeared into the small bathroom to change. 

Ardyn’s old clothes fit her remarkably well. She hung her old clothes in the shower and folded the jacket as best she could, and emerged to the sound of the engine rattling its way to life. Ardyn gave her a once-over and nodded, expressionless, before turning back to the controls.

“Well, they fit you,” he said. Luna wondered what he saw. Did he see himself, young and earnest, just setting out on an ordained journey to cleanse the Scourge? Or did he see a girl playing pretend, stepping into shoes too big for her on a task she wasn’t meant to accomplish? Luna lurched as the engine kicked into gear at last, and held onto the wall for support as the furniture that wasn’t nailed down started to shift. 

“It’s a few hours to Gralea,” Ardyn shouted over the roar of the engine. “You hardly need _my_ permission to make yourself comfortable.”

Luna staggered over to a couch and collapsed into it, holding onto the arms as the airship rose from its moorings. Her heart plunged to her stomach. Before this, she had the choice to run. She could turn around, go to the docks, wait for the Lucian envoy to arrive, and be home before morning. But now, in the Accursed’s ship, jostled by currents of warm wind as it turned for Niflheim, she had no recourse. 

The shaking and shifting balanced out as the ship found a course over the sea winds, and Luna rolled up her new, beautiful sleeves and stretched out on the couch. It had been so long since she’d run to the station, so long since she’d truly slept, and even with the threat of the Scourge behind her, she could barely keep her eyes open long enough to be afraid. 

Something hard and leathery batted her arm, and Luna yelped, jolting awake. 

“Inside voices,” Ardyn called, in a light sing-song. Luna drew her knees to her chest, breathing hard, and looked down into the liquid eyes of Umbra and Pryna, her first messengers, sitting on their haunches with their tails whapping the carpet. 

She couldn’t help it. It had been such a long day, and Pryna was tilting her head in the way she always did when Luna was upset, ear threatening to pop inside out. Luna burst into tears. Umbra whined and jumped onto the couch, licking Luna’s face, and Pryna nuzzled close, shoving her head under Luna’s arm. They both smelled oddly of peanut butter, but they were warm and familiar, and Luna had never been so grateful to see them in her life.

“If I see divine fur on my furniture…” Ardyn warned. 

“Oh, leave them be,” Luna said, kissing Umbra on the forehead and wrapping her arm around his neck. Umbra shuffled his paws, bearing the indignity with his usual patience, and the sling around his chest bumped against Luna. Luna detached from him, sniffing wetly, and pulled out the red and gold notebook she’d given to Noctis from Umbra’s sling. She sent Umbra off with her farewell message right before she left for the station—That it took Noctis so long to write back made Luna’s fingers tremble as she turned the pages.

There, right after her rather long, frantic message to Noct, was a page of untidy scrawling. 

_WHAT?  
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’RE GONNA DIE?  
YOU CAN’T DIE  
YOU’RE THE ORA ~~CUL~~ CLE  
THE GODS WOODNT LET YOU?????  
ARE YOU OK?????????  
DAD SAYS YOUR LOST YOU ARENT LOST ARE YOU LOST????????????  
PLEASE TELL ME YOUR OK ME AND GLADDY AND IGGY WILL FIND YOU IF YOU WANT GLADDY KNOWS A GUY WITH A CAR AND I’M DOING BETTER AT ~~pisical phys fis~~ THERIPY I HAVE MAGIC I CAN DO SOMETHING  
BE OK_

_-Noct_

_P.S. I gave Umbra p-nut butter and he woodnt go away til I gave him more. Sorry._

_P.P.S. Your Highness. This is Ignis Scientia, Noct’s “Iggy.” While Gladio does have a friend with a car, I am NOT letting Noctis run after you when he set fire to the curtains trying to practice magic last month. We’ll send the Glaives instead. Gladio knows someone._

Luna stared at the page for a long moment. Umbra looked up at her, a plaintive whine ringing out over the thrum of the engine. 

“Oh, dear.” Luna dug into Umbra’s sling for her pen. “No, Umbra, I don’t have any peanut butter.”

Umbra hunched down, sighing with acute, wrenching heartbreak. Pryna ignored him and pushed against Luna’s side, bracing her against the rocking of the ship as she wrote. 

_Dear Noctis,_

_I am not lost. I cannot say where I’m going, but I’ve spoken to the Leviathan and it seems as though we haven’t been told the full story. The prophecy is less of a certainty than a guideline, and I don’t believe either of us have to follow the rules. Not when the Leviathan said that, according to her, this is all just a game between Bahamut and Ifrit. I can’t speak to either of them to confirm, of course, but I may ask Gentiana. She did not approve of my leaving, but we have been friends since the start, and I know she will listen._

_I don’t need rescue, but it’s kind of you to offer. I’m glad your therapy is going better. It’s spelled physical, by the way. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to read that book series you let me borrow. Chronicles of Purrdain? With the cats? I haven’t forgotten. When I come back, we’ll read them together._

_P.S. Umbra doesn’t have to eat at all, but he is a terrible beggar. You will never be rid of him now._

_\- Luna_

Luna tucked the pen and notebook in Umbra’s sling and scratched his ears. “Go on,” she said. “I know you want to.”

Umbra licked her hand, leaving behind the faintest scent of peanut butter, and disappeared with a soft, delighted bark. Pryna huffed in disgust and laid her head on Luna’s stomach. Luna smiled at her and pet her gently, her own eyelids drooping as Pryna fell asleep under her touch, and before long, Luna was drifting in darkness, shunted between vague, uneasy dreams.

She woke to a high-pitched whistle. Pryna’s head shot up, disapproval in her eyes, and Luna blinked muzzily as she scrambled up to look over the back of the couch. Ardyn was still in the pilot’s chair, but his lazy sprawl looked a little too affected, like an actor trying to appear calm when the set was catching fire in the background. 

“I thought I might warn you,” Ardyn said. “We’re a few miles from Gralea.”

“Oh.” Luna tried to focus. Pryna nudged her with a cold nose, and she gently pushed her aside. “That’s… nice?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Ardyn said. “But that means, dear girl, that we are, oh, just about to cross Shiva’s corpse. There may be some turbulence.”

Luna shuddered, and realized that the air had indeed gone a few degrees cooler since she slept. The thought of Shiva dead, her body cracking apart like a glacier in the fields of Niflheim, made her skin crawl. “Why do you think there’ll be turbulence?” she asked. “The cold air from her body?”

“Partly,” Ardyn said. “It may also have something to do with the fact that she’s in the cabin as we speak.”

Luna whirled around. Pryna was sliding off the couch, ears flat against her skull, whining high in her throat. Gentiana stood by the bookcase, smiling faintly, dark hair falling about her shoulders. 

Eyes open.

“Young Oracle,” she said.

“Gen.” Luna climbed off the couch, staggering towards her old friend. “Gentiana, I’m… I’m glad you’re here. I spoke to the Leviathan. It looks like the prophecy—“

“Oh, goodness me,” Ardyn murmured. “I don’t believe I can watch.”

“If the Oracle forsakes her blessing,” Gentiana said, “then the gods will forsake the Oracle.”

Luna stopped. Pryna crawled in front of her, belly low to the ground, growling and whining by degrees. Gentiana didn’t even look down. “What do you mean by forsake?” Luna asked. “Gen, I’m not… I’m still planning to cleanse the Scourge.”

“Kind of you,” Ardyn said. He sauntered over to Luna’s side, hands in his pockets. “It’s been some time since I’ve seen you wear _that_ face. When was it? I must have been, oh, forty-three…”

“The Oracle Sylva yet lives,” Gentiana said. She stepped forward, and crystals formed around her, long and sharp as slivers of glass. “She will see the prophecy fulfilled.”

“No.” Luna’s voice came out harsh, made thin with the chill air. The thought of her mother dead, killed by the will of the gods, with poor Noctis dead with her, stirred the fury that she’d felt with the Leviathan. “No, you aren’t killing my _mother._ ”

“Word of warning,” Ardyn said, leaning to the side. “It isn’t your mother who holds Shiva’s full attention.”

The meaning of this came to Luna too late. She felt rooted to the spot, frozen in place as the crystals turned to her, dozens of wicked, jagged fragments of ice longer than the spikes of her mother’s crown. She threw her arms up too late, a futile attempt to ward them off, and heard a high cry as Pryna leapt onto her, pushing her to the floor of the ship. 

A shadow passed over Luna and Pryna, and she heard the sickening thunk of ice hitting flesh. Ardyn’s knees buckled, and he fell to the carpet, black blood spattering the fine woven threads. Pryna’s leg was bleeding, but she still tried to move, grabbing Luna’s collar in her jaws and dragging her a few scant inches across the floor.

“No, don’t,” Luna whispered. She grabbed at Pryna. “It’s okay. Run, Pryna. Please, run. Find Noctis. Find _help._ Just don’t stay here.” 

Pryna whined and disappeared in a soft glow of golden light. Luna looked up, over the lump that was Ardyn’s body, and looked into the eyes of Shiva.

She wasn’t Gentiana any longer. Her dark hair had gone white, her long limbs shrinking into a smaller form, her body blue and glittering with ice. She descended upon Luna, her eyes holding none of the fondness Luna had come to expect, none of the familiarity. She looked the way she did when she would turn to Luna’s father in the halls of the manor, and Luna thought of him, sleeping through the chill of death in a trench south of Gralea. 

She wondered, through the haze of terror, if those eyes were the last he’d ever seen.

Shiva’s hand stretched towards Luna, and Luna clenched her eyes tight.

Then, all at once, the bite of the air disappeared. The heating vents of the ship blasted warm air, and Luna blinked at their rattling hiss to find herself alone with Ardyn’s body. Shiva was gone. Had she only been warning her? Reminding her of what she could do? What she _would_ do? Luna crawled on stiff hands to where Ardyn lay, and tried to drag at his shoulder.

“Gods’ blood,” Ardyn said, and Luna shrieked. He rolled over, face oozing with the black blood of the Scourge, his shirt riddled with bloodstained holes. He glanced Luna’s way and winced. “Must have passed over her body. I see she didn’t kill you.”

“You stepped in front of me,” Luna said. Ardyn shrugged. 

“Shiva’s a spoilsport.” He coughed, heaving himself to his feet. “I couldn’t very well let her win, could I?” He shook out his arms and extended a hand to Luna. “Come, now.”

Luna placed a hand in his, and he pulled her to her feet. He looked her over, his expression oddly humorless, and brushed at her shoulders. 

“Well,” he said. “At least she didn’t ruin my favorite suit.” Then he left her, returning to the pilot’s chair. Luna watched him go, running a hand along the laced sleeves of a shirt that once belonged to the first king of light, and let the heat of the vents wash over her, pushing away the insistent approach of Niflheim’s eternal frost.


	6. Chapter 6

"Good gods," said Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt, leaning forward on his throne with the fascination of a man witnessing the birth of an abomination. "There are _more_ of you?"

Luna stood stiffly at Ardyn's side, employing every trick in her etiquette lessons to seem properly bland and uninterested. The emperor was younger than she expected, with trim white hair and lines that looked more suited to laughter than to a man who had, in the last ten years of his reign, devastated Galahd and razed the borders of Tenebrae and Niflheim. He steepled his fingers, and Ardyn lay a hand on Luna's shoulder, jostling her slightly.

"Only the one," Ardyn said. "I did come from _somewhere,_ your radiance. My dear niece Buttercup--"

"Buttercup?" the emperor asked, smiling wide.

_Buttercup?!_ Luna thought.

"Yes," Ardyn said. "She was raised by my uncle, in the hills of Accordo. Do forgive her lack of manners; Her dearest friends in the hills were Peter the goatherd and her darling pet goat--"

"Who was terrible," Luna said, before Ardyn could continue. "He was always eating garbage and falling into holes, so we named him after Uncle Ardyn."

The emperor huffed a laugh through his fingers. "Indeed?"

Ardyn ruffled Luna's hair, which gleamed reddish gold instead of ash blonde, and shrugged a shoulder. "Such a charming girl."

"Thank you, Uncle," Luna said. 

"Of course, now that my uncle Alp has tragically fallen into a well," Ardyn said, "it's my duty to look after dear Buttercup until we find her a suitable place to live."

"I see," the emperor said. He raised his brows at Luna. "And what do you think of the empire, young Buttercup, now that you've seen our fair city?"

_It's dying,_ Luna thought. _Mother's reports say that your own people have to live on rations because the crops are failing, and you're spending more and more money on god-killing machines and magitech._ Which, Luna knew, she'd have to find a way to see. Perhaps the empire, twisted though it was, had research on the gods that even the Oracles did not.

And perhaps, said a small voice in her head, still awash with panic, there would be something to protect her and Noctis from Gentiana.

She shuddered. "It's... cold." she said, and the emperor nodded.

"That would be the Glacian's influence," he said. "Until her body melts at last, we are plagued by winter. Your uncle hasn't seen fit to give you a proper winter coat?"

Luna tugged at her sleeves. "He's not very fashionable at the best of times, your imperial majesty," she said. "My uncle Alp said that he used to run around naked when he was little, and would cry and cry when he had to put on pants--"

"That's enough socialization for one day," Ardyn said, presenting a vague smile to the emperor's unrestrained delight. "I thought I might show little Buttercup to my rooms, so that we can continue our briefing without interruptions."

"If you insist," the emperor said. He nodded as Ardyn bowed, and covered his smile when Luna gave Ardyn a blank, confused look rather than bow in turn. She would not bend her head to the emperor who would see all of Tenebrae and Lucis fall under his boot, no matter how charming he tried to seem.

When they left the throne room, Luna let out a long, shaky breath.

"He isn't much, is he?" Ardyn said. "Couldn't even recognize a princess when he sees one."

"You did help," Luna said, twisting her fingers in her new, magically glamoured hair. Which was odd, really. Ardyn had been helping more than she'd expected--that is, at all--and she still couldn't banish the vision of his body collapsing before her, bearing the shards of ice that had been meant for her.

"Live a few hundred years," Ardyn informed her, in a low whisper, "and you'll welcome any distraction, I assure you." He stopped before a plain iron door and checked his wrist, which was bare. "Oh, look at the time. It seems I shall be away with the emperor for another hour, at least. Do stay here, dear niece, and do not by any means go to the lower levels through the main elevator just there--No, there--behind the warehouse. Very off-limits, you know. Not good for innocent eyes."

"Thank you, Uncle," Luna said. "And it isn't a trap, either, I'm sure."

"Oh, not at all," Ardyn said. "I will see you in exactly one hour, sweet Buttercup."

He chuckled at Luna's scowl of displeasure and turned to stalk off down the hall, going back the way he came. Luna waited a moment before she turned the other way.

The warehouse was a large, open space with wide walls and giant mounds of boxes, and there were people scurrying about everywhere. Most were MTs, but Luna saw some mechanics and regular workers as well, and she had to duck behind boxes and card readers more than once to avoid being spotted.

_Stay focused,_ she thought, slipping around a crate and running across a ramp. _Don't think about Pryna. Or Gen. Or Noct._ But the worry kept creeping up anyways, filling in the gaps made by dread as she waited for lines of MTs to pass, and she found herself twisting the laces of Ardyn's old shirt into knots.

She wished Ravus were there. She and Ravus never agreed on anything, not really, but when one of them was upset, the other one always took on a maddening sort of calm. She could use Ravus' hand in hers, his short, sharp voice telling her to stop and go home just so she could keep going to spite him.

She had to take a moment just to breathe after that. Then she broke for the elevator, slipping inside and jamming any old button until the doors swung shut.

"Pryna?" she whispered, as the elevator began to descend. "Pryna, are you okay?"

Nothing. The elevator clunked to a halt, and the doors opened to a maze of pathways and open doors. Luna stepped out, and was immediately jerked to the side by a hand on her arm.

"You aren't meant to be here," said her captor. He was a middle-aged man with tufts of hair sticking out of his chin and jaw like bristly wire, and his eyes were drooping and pale. He squinted down at her, and Luna tried to yank out of his grip.

"Oh, no," she said, trying to figure what a country girl from Accordo might sound like. "My Uncle Ardyn, you see, he brought me here and I lost him on the way to his office. You don't know where he is, do you? I'm Buttercup. Buttercup Izunia."

"Good gods," the man said. 

"People keep saying that," Luna said. She poured all the panic of the past few hours into her voice. "I'm so sorry, sir, but I swear he went right past here, and he said we'd eat dinner together but I'm so turned around, this is nothing like the village at home--"

"Enough," the man said. "You certainly talk as much as he does. Very well, child. Stay with me."

" _Thank_ you," Luna said, as he finally let go of her arm. She trotted next to him, hands clasped behind her back. "What's your name? What do you do around here? Are you--" she glanced at his badge, which had the symbol of a doctor in the corner. "A mechanic?"

"A... No," the man said. "I am the chief research head of the Niflheim military, young lady. Dr. Besithia."

"Oh!" Luna held down a thick lump of disgust in her belly. "How interesting. Uncle Ardyn talks about you, he says you make daemons."

"Not daemons," Besithia said. "Weapons. God-killers. I'm working on a machine that could tear down the Lucian Wall if we must!"

"Wow." Luna tried to take on Noct's way of speaking, all earnest exclamations and excitable nodding. "Can it do it yet? Can I see? You can't really kill a god, can you, though? They're gods, I mean, they always come back."

"Primitive superstition," Besithia said. He waved to a room at their right, and Luna leaned to the side. An enormous metal frame lay within, crawling with engineers. "We are designing a weapon now that can lay waste even to Bahamut himself."

Luna shuddered, but thankfully, Besithia was too busy listening to himself talk to notice. He showed her cages where daemons were kept, walls lined with little glass bottles that roiled with the essence of the Scourge, and an empty room lined with monitors that showed every research hall in the keep. 

Finally, they stopped at Ardyn's office. "Let's see if your uncle is in, shall we?"

The door opened to a small, cramped office, the floor covered in fallen books, desk piled high with paperwork. Luna gingerly stepped in, slipping on a discarded page, and braced herself on the back of a wooden desk chair.

"How surprising," Besithia said. "He isn't here." He flipped open a phone and spoke into it, and Luna hurriedly ducked down to shove the offending piece of paper into the pocket of her pants. "Yes," Besithia said. Luna snagged another page. "It seems as though a young girl claiming to be your... Oh. Ah. I... No, I can _not_ look after her. You cannot simply--Izunia! Izunia!" He scowled and snapped the phone shut.

"Your uncle," he said to Luna, venom in every syllable, "says that he will await you _upstairs,_ where you are meant to be." He strode out of the room and pointed down the hall. "Now, young lady."

Luna gave him a brittle smile and picked her way out again, and walked briskly to the elevator. She didn't mind seeing the back of him--the way he spoke of magitech and daemons made her skin crawl. Still, she needed more time to explore, which just wouldn't be possible so long as he was there. Maybe at night, when he went home, she could sneak down a second time.

She found Ardyn's door with little trouble, and blinked when it opened at her touch. Unlocked, in an imperial keep? She looked inside and immediately saw why. Ardyn's rooms were bare, featuring a small, unused kitchenette, a couch that had seen some use, and a bed that looked new and untouched. Luna took off her boots and unhooked the sword from her belt, then padded over to the bed.

There was a click, and Luna jumped as cold air blasted through the vents. She scooted back to the headboard, mind fogging with terror, but after a moment, the air clicked off again.

"Just the air conditioning," she whispered. She drew up her knees and watched the door, waiting for the creep of frost, the flicker of snow in the air. Her heart beat so fast that she could feel it in her throat, and her skin prickled, nails digging into her arms. 

Gentiana didn't come.

Luna didn't know how long she sat there. It could have been minutes, or an hour, or a day. All she knew was that when the scratching came to the door, she screamed so loud that her ears rang.

Behind the door, she heard a familiar whimper. 

"Pryna!" She scrambled off the bed, wincing as stiff limbs protested, and ran for the door. She heaved it open to find Umbra there, sling heavy around his neck, panting. Luna ushered him in.

"Oh, Umbra," she said, kneeling down. She took out the notebook, and her fingers caught on something that crinkled as it moved. She pulled out a small, glossy bag, and carried it and the notebook to the bed.

The bag had an assortment of candy inside, wrapped up in plastic and covered in bright slogans Luna didn't recognize. She opened a pink one and tried it--peach. She should have known--and flipped through the notebook.

_Luna,_

_Are you sure???_

_I talked to Iggy and Gladio about the gods. Gladio thinks it's dumb but doesnt want me to tell you that. Iggy says "it may have merit" and talked a lot about stuff he read in the library. He's a giant nerd but I guess I need to be one too if I'm gonna help._

_We're gonna go to the library tomorrow and lie and say we're there for Gladdy's ~~reserch~~ research paper. If I see anything cool I'll give it to Umbra._

_The candy is my favorite. I don't know where you are but I bet you don't eat candy like ever because your mom is kind of scary? About food? Sorry. The chocolate ones are the best so save them for last._

_If you aren't ok tell me and I can come get you._

_Noct_

Luna closed the notebook and lay back on the bed with a soft whumph of fresh sheets. Umbra jumped up to join her, curling next to her with the scent of damp dog and peanut butter, and Luna dipped into the bag of candy.

She saved the chocolate for last.

When Ardyn came back, the day's events had finally caught up to Luna. She lay sprawled with one arm over Umbra, dressed in Ardyn's old clothes, hair falling red-gold about her cheeks. The bag of candy had been conscientiously smoothed out and set on the bedside table, and she held the notebook under her arm. 

Ardyn raised a hand, and Umbra lifted his head, lips peeling back to reveal sharp teeth.

"Yes," Ardyn whispered. "I'm duly terrified." He snapped his fingers, and time distorted, freezing Luna in place. Umbra tried to wriggle out from under her, but her arm was locked over him, and Ardyn was already skimming through the book.

After a moment, he closed the book and returned it to its proper place.

"It _isn't_ fair, is it?" he said, looking down at Luna's still form. He snapped his fingers again, and Luna lurched upright, shaken awake by Umbra's attempt to escape. She looked up at Ardyn with wide, wild eyes, and he smiled.

"Good evening, Buttercup," he said. Luna groaned, and he stepped back as Umbra lunged across her, teeth snapping close to Ardyn's vest. "And to you, too, I suppose."

"Umbra, not right now," Luna mumbled. She blinked at Ardyn, still half awake, and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. "What do you want, Ardyn?"

Ardyn smiled. "Too many things to count, my dear. But for now, I'll settle for your company at dinner. The emperor seems quite taken with you already, gods alone know why."

"I expect he's surprised to meet an Izunia who doesn't act like they've been raised by wolves," Luna said, and Ardyn laughed. She wiggled out from under Umbra and formally extended a hand, behaving for the first time like the princess Ardyn had expected her to be. "Very well, Uncle. Let's go have dinner with the emperor."


	7. Chapter 7

"For a commoner raised in the hills of Accordo," the emperor said, setting down his wineglass, "your niece has a remarkable knowledge of formal table manners."

The dining hall of the emperor was more of a museum than a place to live, with columns carved in the Solheim style, cracked oil paintings framed by heavy curtains, and displays carrying fragments of pottery that glowed with the runes of ancient magitech. Luna felt a little like an artifact herself, sitting in a high-backed chair with the eyes of the emperor and his counsel fixed on her hands. Which were holding the proper fork and knife for her steak, tilted at just the correct angle. 

Luna glanced at Ardyn. He was smiling at her, vague and deliberately unhelpful. Fine, then. Luna lifted her chin in her most Ravus-like way.

"Uncle Ardyn may be an incorrigible liar, but he _is_ a good teacher, sir."

"Your Radiance," Ardyn said, in a stage whisper. One of the men at the table, a general Luna recognized from her mother's reports, snorted.

"Your Radiance," Luna said.

The emperor held her gaze, and Luna stared back, trying not to scrape her knife against the plate in her rigid grip. Finally, after a breathless silence that lingered just a moment too long, Iedolas smiled.

"Of course," he said. "Chancellor Izunia has been an education in and of himself. Tell me, are all Izunias so scientifically inclined?"

Luna opened her mouth, but Ardyn spoke over her, laying a hand on hers. "My Buttercup fancies herself an artist," he said. "She wouldn't know a daemon from a divine messenger, I'm afraid."

Luna smiled sweetly. "But I'm ever so interested, all the same. It's my grandfather, you see. He worried so much, since Uncle Ardyn was the family disappointment, what with the goat cheese incident--"

"Largely exaggerated," Ardyn said. "Your Radiance, you should see her watercolors. She's quite adept."

Luna bit back a sharp retort. Ardyn knew very well that only the non-magical children of Tenebrae bothered with things like music and painting and embroidery. Ravus was almost proficient with the piano, and could sketch fairly well. Luna could barely hold a tune and drew awkward stick figures at best, having spent all the time she would have been at lessons learning magic, reading old books on history, and sitting in on meetings with her mother.

Watercolors would have been nice, though. 

"I'm astounded," the emperor said. "It seems as though Izunia is almost fond of you. In my experience, he hardly extends that honor to anyone."

"If everyone is quite done dragging my name through the mud?" Ardyn asked, and a number of dinner guests smiled. At that, the conversation shifted to the movement of Lucian Glaives on the border, and Luna felt the emperor's attention pull away like a bright searchlight sliding over the table. She risked a small sigh.

If anyone were to ask her later, Luna couldn't say what she'd eaten. It all went by in an anxious blur, punctuated by the clink of metal and the steady tramp of MT patrols in the hall outside. Finally, when she didn't think she could stand another minute, she turned to Ardyn.

"Uncle," she said. Ardyn smiled vaguely down at her. "Do you have a library here?"

"The books may be a bit advanced for you, dear," a man on the other side of the table said. Both Luna and Ardyn looked to him at the same time, and his cheeks flushed a ruddy pink. 

"It would do no harm, I'm sure," said the emperor, setting down his napkin. "The advanced texts are under lock and key in any case. I can show you to the public study myself."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to take you away from your guests on my account," Luna said, masking her panic only partway. The emperor smiled at her.

"It would be my pleasure," he said. Ardyn, as expected, only nodded in agreement. Luna was on her own.

Very well. She'd heard from her father that when her mother was young, she had to dance with the emperor at the treaty signing in Accordo. Even though she knew the treaty would never go through, that Prince Regis and his company were fighting their way to Altissia amid a wall of endless, erratic MTs, she took the emperor's hand. 

Luna would be a poor daughter of Tenebrae if she couldn't do the same. 

The emperor begged his leave of the table, and Luna slipped out of her chair, gratefully leaving the room of generals and scientists to it. Iedolas extended an arm, and Luna nearly placed her hand on his, just as she'd been taught, before she remembered what she was doing. Instead, she looped her arm around the crook of his elbow, just as Noct did to her when he made his father take a picture of them, and the emperor raised his brows in delight.

"Unorthodox," he said, "but personable. Quite like your uncle."

"Please," Luna said. "Don't compare us more than you must, Your Radiance."

The emperor's eyes crinkled at the corners, and he patted her hand with his. Luna had to lurch to keep from stumbling.

There, just under the skin of the emperor of Niflheim, moving like a shadow in his blood, was the Scourge.

It wasn't much, Luna saw, as she was led through the hall at a slow, considerate pace. Just a hint. He must have contracted it recently, for it not to show. His skin was pale, but there was none of the yellow bruising that came with the Scourge, no spots or redness to his eyes. It was enough to make him moody, perhaps. A little irritable, sleepless. But not enough for him to notice.

Luna saw an MT patrol turn the corner ahead of them, and impulsively grabbed the emperor's hand. "Are they safe?" She whispered. 

To her relief, the emperor turned his gaze to the MTs. Luna quickly drew on her power, squeezing Iedolas' hand tight to prevent the glow of her gift from escaping. She felt it push through him, burning out the Scourge just as it had when Luna was allowed to assist her mother at healings, and withdrew.

"They can't hurt you," the emperor was saying. "They were made with the safety of the empire in mind."

Luna pretended to shrink away from the MTs all the same, and the emperor patted her hand again.

"Goodness," he said. "One does feel better for a walk. I'm sure you miss the mountain air, my dear. I hear it does wonders for the constitution."

"Oh no," Luna said. "It was hill country. There weren't any mountains to speak of, not real ones."

"Of course. My mistake." He opened a door, revealing a small room filled floor to ceiling with books, and a low couch and table between them. "Here we are. I hope you weren't looking for fiction--Our supply of that genre is woefully low."

"No, sir," Luna said, crossing onto the plush carpet with relief. "I was looking for... Something about the Cosmogony. A response to it. I don't remember the author's name..."

"Pol's Rebuttal," the emperor said, walking to one side of the room. "Not a very popular text in the outlying regions. I heard that Tenebrae and Lucis had it banned."

That much was true. Luna had read excerpts in her mother's books, but only so that they could be picked apart and torn down. The book was supposed to be one of the most dangerously secular and anti-oracle texts in circulation. Luna would have been chided just for asking for it.

But if none of her studies so far could help her save Noctis, maybe she had to look somewhere else.

"Here we are." Iedolas took down a small, worn book in red leather. "Your uncle asked for this as well, I believe. Found it terribly funny, though I admit I don't see the humor in it. It's more of a tragedy in truth; Most existentialists aren't quite so fatalistic."

"Uncle Ardyn finds some very strange things amusing," Luna said, taking the book. It was very old--It creaked when she opened the front cover. "Thank you."

"You are welcome," the emperor said. "It's been some time since anyone has brought a child to the keep. I forgot how--" He stopped, his eyes going distant. "I've forgotten many things, I suppose. There used to be more families here, when I was a younger man."

"Did you ever want one?" Luna asked.

"Once," Iedolas said. "But the running of an empire does change your priorities. My advice, young Buttercup, is to stay out of politics. Go back to Accordo. Be a painter. The empire will take care of you there."

Luna clutched the book, unsure how to feel. The emperor had done monstrous things in his time, pushing the borders of his empire further out with battle after bloody battle. What would he have been without the empire, though? What happened to him that brought him there? Could anything bring him back?

For a moment, Luna saw Ardyn's face in her thoughts, and she banished it. If the emperor couldn't be cured of his desire to conquer, then what hope did Ardyn have? But perhaps... Perhaps if she tried to _heal_ him...

No. Two thousand years of bitterness wasn't all simply the Scourge. There was more to it, a mess of human emotions tangled up in the daemons that shared Ardyn's flesh, obscuring the man he was, the king he could have been.

Luna sat on the couch, idly flipping through the book without quite reading it. The emperor spoke, and she nodded, but she wasn't sure what was said. Instead she thought of the magic of Oracles, of hundreds of Nox Fleurets living and dying and letting Ardyn suffer, knowing that the time wasn't there yet for him to pass. If they'd thought to cleanse the Scourge instead, if they'd tried to burn it out of him as they did their supplicants...

A pair of hands took the book from Luna, resting it on the couch at her side. She flexed her empty fingers. A cool palm pressed her forehead, and she looked up into dark green eyes.

"Lunafreya," Gentiana said. The emperor was gone, and the door to the hall was covered in frost, ice creeping between the hinges. "The gods have come to a consensus."

Luna fell back. The couch tipped with her, crashing to the floor with a thud that shook several books off their shelves. Gentiana straightened and stepped over the fallen couch, and Luna scrambled back.

"Umbra!" she shouted. "Pryna! A-Ardyn!"

"You call even for the Accursed," Gentiana said. 

"No," Luna said. "No, Gen, you _can't._ " She knew she sounded weak. She knew that her mother would frown at the way her voice quavered, at the tremor of her arms. But Gentiana was upon her at last, and Luna had nowhere to run.

She took a short breath, tilting her chin to look Gentiana in the face.

"My father was right about you," she said. 

Gentiana said nothing. She crouched down and placed her hands on either side of Luna's face.

"You never cared about humanity," Luna said. "You never cared about any of us."

Gentiana closed her eyes, and Luna braced herself. She hoped her death would be quick. She hoped Pryna was alright. She hoped Noct could escape his fate without her, somehow, could defy the gods in his own way. She hoped--

Gentiana pressed a kiss to Luna's forehead.

It was like letting go of a breath she'd been holding for years: A great rush of energy coursing through her, _out_ of her, rising from her core to pour from her hands. Light sparked from her fingers as it went, and Luna cried out as she recognized it for what it was: Her magic, coursing through her veins and _out_ of her, too swift for her to grasp. She tried anyways, tried to cling to straggling ropes of her power, which twisted away as they left her. Gentiana held her through it, even when she started to thrash and yell, even when she beat her fists on Gentiana's chest and clawed at her with her short, clipped nails. She was screaming, wailing like a child in a tantrum, but still Gentiana did not move. 

Only when the last of Luna's magic was gone, fading from her hands while Luna shuddered and pushed weakly at Gentiana's arms, did the goddess pull away.

"There will be another," she said. "The king of light will not fail."

Luna lurched for her, but Gentiana stepped back, making Luna fall to her hands on the carpet. There was a sharp crack, and the door slammed open to reveal Ardyn, flanked by MTs, brows raised in what looked like the first true expression of surprise Luna had seen yet. 

"Shiva," he said. "What have you done?"

Gentiana vanished, leaving not even a dent in the carpet where she'd stood. Luna raised shaking hands to her face.

Ardyn stepped around the couch. She could hear his footsteps, feel them through the floor, and she tried to take a steadying breath before he could get to her. 

Then she tried again.

And again.

"My dear." Ardyn's voice was low, close to her ear. "What has she done?"

Luna didn't dare look up. "My magic," she said, and felt Ardyn's shadow shift over her. A warm hand touched her shoulder, and she bent over her hands.

"My magic's gone," she whispered. "I'm not the Oracle anymore. I'm no one."


	8. Chapter 8

Since the founding of their star, the humans of Eos always had gods. 

Some were made in small, secret ways, in the upkeep of shrines built by farmers and the lovers of soldiers gone to war. Some found humanity in the blazing path of a fallen star, or through the raging, bitter cold of a winter storm. Some walked with humanity, blessed their chosen ones, cursed those who fell from grace, and extended their hands to those who showed the piety they deserved. 

But some gods did not belong to humanity. 

Umbra and Pryna woke on a cold night thousands of years before Luna was born, rising from the astral plane and setting their paws in the dry grass of a distant outpost. They walked a few feet apart, flanking the large, grey-furred creature between them, and lifted their heads to the skinny figure of a girl crouching in the reeds. A fire burned behind her, and she held out her hand, fingers twitching. 

“Come, Lysa,” she whispered. “Come. Come here.”

And the creature that had once been a wolf blinked dark eyes and came to her, turning their back on the world that was. 

_Lysa,_ Umbra and Pryna said, in the language of dogs. Lysa pushed their head against the girl’s hand, and the girl’s eyes narrowed in a smile.

“Good girl,” she said, and yes. Yes, the gods of dogs agreed. Yes. _Good._

It had been some time since Umbra and Pryna walked with their people, but they always remembered who they were. Umbra raced through the close, dark halls of the Gralean imperial keep, tail whipping as the air around him grew chill, and panted his girl’s name in small puffs of steam. His girl was in trouble, and he had a duty to her. There was no dog worth their salt who could stay still while their human wept, and Umbra could hear her, sobbing, _screaming,_ like a pup ripped from their dam. 

When he reached her at last, the man who smelled of fear was with her, holding her in his arms. One of the humans trapped in metal lay on the ground, smoke pouring from their armor, while the other twitched and jerked against the wall. But they were unimportant: What mattered was his girl, who looked down on Umbra with eyes made red and wretched. 

Umbra growled at the man who smelled of fear, and the man smirked. 

“Lo, your protector arrives,” he said. 

“Oh, Umbra,” said his girl. “It’s too late.”

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t too late, because Umbra was _there._ She just didn’t understand, yet. He followed the two of them as the man carried his girl through the keep, her legs dangling, arms wrapped around his neck. At some point, she started to cry again, and the man stopped, his face contorting, before moving on. The fear that ran through his veins spiked, but it was a different sort of fear, this time. A human one. 

He set her down on the bed in their room with care, and stood back, staring at her, as Umbra jumped onto the mattress and nosed at her chin. 

“You should go,” his girl whispered. Her hand automatically found his ears anyways, scratching him just the way he liked, and Umbra lay at her side. “I don’t have magic anymore. You’ll need to go with Mother.”

Umbra ignored that, and licked her face. What was magic? Just something that made the Oracles close themselves off, going cold and distant as their patron goddess, watching the world from a distance. It turned them away from the joy of running in the grass on a warm afternoon, from a laugh that made their breath go short, from the perfection that was the sound of a jar of peanut butter being opened. Anyone and everyone lived without magic, but who could live without _that?_

His girl draped an arm around Umbra’s shoulders, and Umbra wriggled to make himself comfortable. There were more important things, he knew, than oracles and destiny and human borders. One day, his girl would understand.

 

\---

 

Ardyn wasn’t unaccustomed to making mistakes. The last time he’d felt the sting of one so keenly had been the day he’d touched the surface of the Crystal, felt its weak magic stirring against the Scourge that roiled in his flesh, and knew that the gods had never meant for him to be saved. 

He watched Lunafreya Nox Fleuret curl up on the bed with her dog, wearing Ardyn’s old uniform, and wondered just where in the past few days he’d gone wrong. 

He should have sent her straight home, of course. It would have been easy enough to do, and all she needed was a nudge in the right direction to put her doubts to rest. But no, Ardyn had been too… too _amused_ to bother, and now the creature had wept into his shirt, stripped of her magic and her calling.

The thought that he may have created a second Accursed flitted through his mind, but Ardyn could find no pleasure in it. What use did Eos have for that? He pulled his chair out and sat, facing the girl, and tried to remember what Gil had done to try and drag him back to himself, so long ago. 

Not, of course, that any of it had worked. 

Not that he wanted them to.

“My darling Buttercup,” he said. 

“Don’t.” Luna’s voice was thick. “It isn’t funny.”

“My dear Oracle.”

Luna whipped around, and Umbra looked up, ears tilted forward. “Don’t _call_ me that.”

“What _should_ I call you?” Ardyn asked. “For my own sake, you know. Imagine how awkward it would be, calling you _hey, you_ for the next, oh, two days of your life.”

“Two days?” Luna asked. “What happens in two days?”

“You die, of course.” Ardyn propped his chin on one hand, relishing in the scandalized look that crossed Luna’s face. Ah, there she was. “A daughter of Sylva Nox Fleuret without her magic isn’t much at all. Just another delicate blossom, waiting to be crushed underfoot.”

“I’m not...” Luna took a stuttering breath. “Can’t you let me be? For one moment? Can’t you see that they’ve taken _everything_ from me?”

“Oh, dear,” Ardyn drawled. “I can’t imagine how that must feel.”

“Stop.”

“So what are you?” Ardyn asked. Luna wiped her eyes with her forearm. “A spare, like your brother?”

Luna was silent. Ardyn watched her mind work with delight: She had such a wellspring of fury within her, but it was held back with a control that could be strong as iron one day, if she put her mind to it. So many Oracles before her had been meek, sanctimonious fools. But this girl, this small, ungainly thing, had been turned aside by the smile of a sacrificial lamb, and that, it seemed, made her dangerous enough for the gods to try and shackle her. 

“I’m the daughter of the Duke of Tenebrae,” she said. “A man who scared the gods so much that they.” She closed her eyes for a breath. “That they killed him. That’s what I am.”

“And why,” Ardyn asked, “are the gods so afraid of _you?_ ”

Luna tugged at the sheets she’d rumpled out of place, and bit the side of her lip, gaze cast to her feet. When she spoke, her words were soft, careful. 

“Because I’m right,” she said. “Because there _is_ another way. Maybe my magic was a part of it, but… but I think I can do it.” She looked up at Ardyn, and for the first time in centuries, Ardyn felt a disquieting sense of unease roll through him. “I don’t have a plan yet, but I think… I think I can save Noct. I can save Eos.”

“Maybe,” she said, “I can even save you.”


End file.
